City of the Reapers
by Civilian Paradox
Summary: Mass effect/SG-1/Atlantis AU. The crew of the SGC want to help those in need. How will they fare when they are thrust into the unknown? Will they be able to help defend a new galaxy? [ABANDONED]
1. Chapter 1: Atlantis Begins

Chapter 1: Atlantis Begins

 _ **November 2nd, 2009**_

 _ **14:00, Time in San Francisco, CA, USA**_

 _ **Atlantis Briefing room**_

Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard should have been tidying up the mess that was his new office within Atlantis after the less than graceful landing when the city's intercom went off, alerting him to the incoming wormhole. Since Richard Woolsey left command of the city to him, and all wormholes being directed to Atlantis with its newer gate, he was unable to complete any work for himself. He was busy getting a rundown of the next week's missions, with Colonel Samantha Carter, Colonel Steven Caldwell, and General Jack O'Neill, when Rodney came bursting in.

"I've done it. No need for congratulations, but I will be taking my Nobel prize now."

"What are you on about? Is this about your and Zelena's super-secret project that you kept screaming about when everyone tried to walk into your room?" Sheppard decided to speak since everyone else seemed as confused as himself.

"Well yes, I thought that with all the people from the SGC coming here for the database, I wouldn't get any work done so I went through the information about the wormhole drive. I've found a way to dial the 9-chevron address from here. I mean the power requirements will almost definitely drain the ZPMs, but we could open a wormhole to get us there, or at least part of the way anyway. Well at least four fifths of the way there."

Then, Dr. Zelenka ran suddenly, panting and muttering under his breath "Zabiju ho, neznesitelnou zadek. Je příliš mnoho, než ho požádat, aby ocenil ostatní? You had to just run off ahead didn't you. I told you The ZPMs would be depleted before we got anywhere close to the location of the Destiny, and no ZPMs mean no power, no power means no shield and no shield means the atmosphere would disappear the moment we dropped out."

"Well yes, but that's why we bring the Hammond and the Daedalus. We can have them land on one of the piers while we fly the city there, we drop out before the limit, one of the ships goes for the Destiny whilst the other helps locate a suitable planet for us to land on." Rodney counters, "We can get people to look at the Destiny's star charts and scout them out for the planets we need."

John could see where this was going, but before he could voice his concern Jack spoke "The IOA wont allow it. The best place for Atlantis is either here, or back in Pegasus, and personally, I think it should go back to Pegasus. However the IOA disagrees, so we're trying to come up with a way to get it back there, which you should also be helping with instead of working on a wild goose chase!"

"But if Sam could just look over the calculations she would tell you that …"

"You have your answer McKay! Now go and think of a way to help the inhabitants of the Pegasus galaxy."

Rodney then begrudgingly left, deliberately leaving his tablet for Sam to see, pulling Zelenka along behind him complaining about lack of understanding for his work.

Sam started to look through the work on the tablet when her eyes widened, she look directly at Jack, "Sir, with all due respect, I think we should try this, with the Destiny being controlled by the expedition, we could make the trip there. With the ZPM from the Odyssey, and the Neutrino Ion generators being installed on our ships, we should make it back in a few months. We'd have to start from the outer rim of our galaxy and with the all the power systems combined. It could work, we could get our people home Jack."

"I won't sign off on a mission like this but if you think it'll work I won't stop you. I'll keep the damn bureaucrats off your back until you get back, Woolsey could help as well if I tell him, he'll let Camile Wray know once we get your confirmation that your on your way there. I'll expect a signal when you get to the edge of the Galaxy. If I don't hear from you there will be hell to pay. " Jack replied, albeit reluctantly. "Is there anyone you want onboard before you disappear?"

"Well sir, if you can spare them," Sam started, "SG-1 would come in handy."

"I think that Atlantis could do with SG-1 expertise with all the Ancient doohickeys around here, and as such this will be their current assignment for the foreseeable future,"Jack confidently announced to the room.

"Now I'm not an expert on the 'Gate, but won't a wormhole stop us from opening the cities hyperdrive? So, is there any way to reroute them back to the SGC, without drawing attention to ourselves?" Steven piped up.

"Well with having the city cloaked, and all the wormholes, along with the travel here, the city is about to lose power. We'll have to move it off world and the IOA will agree with that won't they General" John asked. Everyone looked at each other with small smiles starting to form on their faces. "I don't want to inflate his ego anymore than it already is, but shouldn't Rodney and Radek be here to know before you go sir?"

"Let it be a surprise for everyone else. They'll all go along with you." Jack got up and started to leave. "Well, the last conversation never happened, and I'm late for meeting with the IOA, I'll mention about the power problems you're having Colonel. Good luck. Colonel Ellis, beam me up now. You'll have about a week before they wise up and send someone here to check the power." With that he disappeared in the familiar white glow of the Asgard beaming technology.

 _ **November 4th, 2009**_

 _ **10:24, Time in San Francisco, CA, USA**_

 _ **Atlantis Control room**_

"Chuck are all systems ready for lift off?" John wandered out of his office and entered a room full of shocked people. "We need to set off now before the IOA sends their people here. I thought we had a week, not 2 days."

"Yes sir, all systems are ready. Just where are we going? If you don't mind me asking."

Before John could reply, Rodney came charging into the room just as the city began lifting off "What is going on here? Did you convince the IOA to let us go back?"

"... Not ... exactly," John began gripping the closest console to keep his balance, "Chuck can you get me city wide once we're free from the atmosphere? Everyone has the right to know what our plan is."

"Yes sir," Chuck activated a rarely used console to his left, "You're on."

"Attention, everyone. As you will have no doubt noticed by now, the city has lifted off. Many of you will be wondering why we have done this without telling you. The truth is ... the IOA haven't approved of this mission, but as those of you who have been here before will know, we don't leave anyone behind. Our mission is to get to use the wormhole drive to get to the Destiny and rescue them. However if any of you don't wish to continue with this it will not be held against you. We must get to the edge of the galaxy, so you will have 1 day to decide if you want to leave. I know that isn't as long as many of you would have liked, but the IOA will be sending ships after us, the Hammond and the Daedalus will not be among them, so we won't have much time after dialling the Alpha site. Thank you."

 _ **November 5th, 2009**_

 _ **10:30, Time in San Francisco, CA, USA**_

 _ **Atlantis 'Gate room**_

"I still can't believe you managed to convince the General to go along with this Sam," Rodney shouted as he dialled the Milky Way Alpha site, but before he could get all of the address in, the gate activated. "Off world activation. Shield's raised. How could they have found us?"

A video link was established with the other side, "Hello boys and girls, if you could lower the shield so I won't immediately die on the other side. Thanks."

"Um... General... not to sound ungrateful, but before we lower the shield, how did you know our address?" Steven queried his superior.

"Well Sam gave it to me in the message she sent. I say I'm going to the Tok'ra planet, and gate to you from there." When he was explaining this everyone nearby decided to pointedly look at her. "What, you think I'm just going to let you leave without me? Not. A. Chance. I wouldn't miss this for the world. I did get you about a month head start by directing them to Pegasus before I came here. Now will you please lower the shield for me?"

"There you go sir, shield is now off. Why did you want to come here?"

Jack just laughed, "You have no idea how boring the job of a pencil pusher is, do you McKay? I've missed being put here in the field, though I could do with the not getting shot at and the pay was nice."

"Yes, well we've still got to get these dozen people to the Alpha site before we can go."

Jack looked down to the gate, brow furrowing "Wait, you mean they don't want to stay? You do know that if you send them back we'll lose any head start we have if they know where we're going. The IOA may use the communication stones to put us on trial for treason when we reach the Destiny."

"If we reach the Destiny you mean." Sam spoke up sadly, drawing everyone, except Rodney's, attention "We don't have the Odysseys ZPM, so we may not make it all the way. We," She indicated to Rodney, " have been looking at the power requirements, and we won't make it all the way there without tying all the power systems together. Which may overload Atlantis's systems, or drain all the power from both ships and the ZPMs, but it's the only way to get us close enough, unfortunately it will be a one-way trip, not much of a rescue now."

"They're gone, we'll have about two hours before our 'ride' comes to pick us up. You'll have 1 and a half to tie the systems together. We have to be long gone before they get here. Get whoever you need to help you to make it happen. Is everyone clear on that."

A chorus of agreements went up around the room, and with that, they went around ensuring that they would be ready to leave.

 _ **November 5th, 2009**_

 _ **11:55, Time in San Francisco, CA, USA**_

 _ **Hammond Command Deck**_

"Is everyone ready for the this?" Sam asked over the radio to Steven, Jack, John, and McKay.

"We're ready Colonel, set it off."

With that she, and Major Marks activated the makeshift power conduits. "There. Rodney you should be good to go now."

"Colonel! Two ships have just dropped out of hyperspace," Marks announced, "Picking up their IFF. It's the Sun Tzu and the Odyssey. They're launching their 302s."

"Rodney, we need to go now. We have company."

"What?! I need at least two minutes for the capacitors to fully charge up or it will fry all the conduits in Atlantis. They shouldn't have got here this quickly."

Sam was about to respond but was interrupted by an incoming transmission from the Odyssey, "Atlantis personnel, this is Carl Strom, head of the IOA, you will surrender yourselves to us immediately or we will open fire."

"Marks open a communication channel to both the Odyssey and the Sun Tzu," Sam was hoping to stall for time in order for Rodney to get them out of there. "This is Samantha Carter we will consider surrender if you recall your 302s..." she was stopped by two Asgard beams as they impacted Atlantis's shield.

"Damn it. Rodney get us out NOW!"

"Did they just fire at us? I didn't think they'd open fire at us. Getting us out now, before they kill us." Atlantis, and the two docked ships then lurched into the unstable vortex and nearly immediately dropped out.

"Rodney what happened, we weren't in there for nearly long enough. Where did we end up?" her only response was static, "Marks report."

"All systems apart from life support and shields are unresponsive, hyperdrive and transporters are disabled, sublight, weapons and communications have minor damage, we're unable to get a fix on our current location as of yet." As Marks was saying this, two large metal arms came into view of the ship.

"Major, run a scan on that thing, and the rest of you concentrate on fixing the ship, I want to be able to communicate with Atlantis and the Daedalus."

 **A/N:** **I apologise for the Czech Zelenka says, I had to use Google Translate for it, as I tried to keep all of them in character from the show, and I don't understand Czech. Here is the English version.**

"I'll kill him, the unbearable ass. Is it too much to ask him to appreciate others?"


	2. Chapter 2: Shakedown Run

Chapter 2: Shakedown Run

 _ **January 22nd, 2183**_

 _ **16:55, Galactic standard time, GST**_

 _ **Arcturus Station**_

Commander Estelle Shepard wandered the halls of the station, wondering what she had done that warranted a meeting with two of the most well respected humans in the Alliance. She arrived at the briefing room, and checked the message she received before stepping into the room, "Shepard, you are required to attend a meeting with Admiral Hackett, and Captain Anderson at 1700 GST in briefing room 7 Arcturus Station."

"Ah Shepard you're here. We'll start now." Anderson stated, straightening the paper in front of him.

"Take a seat," Hackett gestured to the chair opposite him, "I think we have some things to talk about."

"That we do Admiral. I don't understand why I'm here."

"Well," Anderson glanced at Hackett, "Have you heard of the Normandy?"

"No, sir. I can't say I have, should I have?"

"No. Well at least we've done one thing right." Hackett handed over a file in front of him, "The Normandy is a prototype stealth frigate, it is a collaboration between ourselves, and the Turian Hierarchy."

"She is optimised for reconnaissance missions, we had the assistance of the Council to complete this. They want this to work just as much as we do. It will show just how far Humanity has come since first contact." Anderson finished.

Shepard looked through the file, "That's all well and good sirs, but what does this have to do with me?"

"She needs staff running her, that includes a marine contingent, I want you to lead it and be my Executive Officer." Anderson said bringing his hands together and leaning forward, "You were able to do the unthinkable on Elysium, you held off the Batarians in order to save the civilians. I can't think of anyone more suited for this."

"The Normandy will be operating in unusual circumstances. Its missions will require the best operatives we have, that includes you Commander. This will be your new assignment, your current captain has been informed. You need to be at Vancouver for 1200 on 28th, you are on shore leave until then. You're dismissed Commander."

####

 _ **January 28th, 2183**_

 _ **13:44, Galactic standard time, GST**_

 _ **Normandy CIC & Bridge**_

Commander Shepard walked onto the CIC from the crew deck, as she did she runs into Corporal Jenkins.

"Commander"

She continues walking, nodding at Navigator Pressly as she heads the cockpit. As she arrives she notices that Nihlus is standing behind Joker who is currently performing the system checks, "Thrusters, check. Navigation, check. Internal emissions sink engaged. All systems online. Drift … just under 1500k."  
"1500 is good. Your captain will be pleased," Nihlus monotony replied before he turned and left the cockpit.

Joker checked behind him, ensuring Nihlus was out of of hearing range, "I hate that guy."

His copilot, Kaidan,looked at him with scrutiny, "Nihlus gave you a compliment … so you hate him?"

"You remember to zip your jumpsuit on the way out of the bathroom? That's good. I just jumped us halfway across the galaxy and hit a target the size of a pinhead. So that's incredible. Besides, Spectres are trouble. I don't like having him on board. Call me paranoid."  
Kaidan audubly sighed at that, "You're paranoid. The Council helped fund this project. They have a right to send someone to keep an eye on their investment."

"Yeah, that is the official story. But only an idiot believes the official story."  
Shepard decided to step in before this escalated into something further, "Spectre's aren't sent on usual shakedown runs, but this isn't a usual shakedown run, that could be why here's here."

"So…" the comm activated, cutting off Kaidan's response.

"Joker. Status report"

"Just cleared the mass relay, Captain. Stealth systems engaged. Everything looks solid. Better brace yourself, sir. I think Nihlus is headed your way."

"He's already here, Lieutenant. Tell Commander Shepard to meet us in the comm room for a debriefing." Captain Anderson said curtly said, cutting the comm.

"Oh, he does not sound happy. Anyone think something went wrong with the mission." Shepard said trying to lighten the mood that had descended in the room.

Joker laughed, "Nah, Captain always sounds like that when he's talking to me."  
Shepard headed towards the comm room, but heard Kaidan's response before she was out of range, "I can't possibly imagine why."

As she passed some of the other officers she overheard part of a conversation Pressly was having with Engineer Adams, "I'm telling you, I just saw him! He marched past like he was on a mission. There's more going on here than the Captain's telling us."

She continued on, stopping to talk with Doctor Chakwas and Jenkins, "Commander, we won't be staying on Eden Prime too long will we? I'm itching for some real action!"

Chakwas just slowly shook her head, "I sincerely hope you're kidding, Corporal. Your 'real cation' usually ends with me patching up crew members in the infirmary."

Shepard knew that he isn't as experienced as she would have liked, "You need to calm down, Jenkins. I'm sure we'll see some action soon, but a good soldier stays cool, even under fire. You have a long career ahead of you. Don't do anything stupid to mess it up."

Chakwas gave her a gentle smile and nod, whilst Jenkins shifted uncomfortably next to her, "Don't worry ma'am. I'm not going to screw this up."

She gestured behind them, "I've got to go. The Captain's waiting for me." She headed into the Communication room, and into an argument Anderson and Nihlus were having.

"The commander deserves to know what's really going on. She's why you're here!" Anderson shouted, his finger in the face of the turian.

"Ahem. Sir, Nihlus. Am I interrupting something? Is there anything I should know about the mission sirs?"  
Nihlus stepped forward and spoke before Anderson could, "This mission is more than a shakedown run. We're here to pick up a Prothean Beacon." he paused, waiting for questions, when none came he continued, "Sharing the beacon will improve the relations your people have with other species."

Anderson then stepped in, "The beacon isn't the only reason Nihlus is here though. He's here to evaluate you for SPECTRE candidacy."

Shepard had to take a minute for it to sink in, when it did she realised Nihlus was talking again.

"-hy I put your name forward as a candidate for the Spectres. I don't care that you're human, Shepard. I only care that you can do the job. Eden Prime will be the first of several missions together."

"Just give the word, Captain."  
Anderson just nodded his head, "We should be getting close to Eden -"  
He was interrupted by Joker over the internal speakers, "Captain! We've got a problem."

Shepard looked at the Captain, "What's wrong Joker?"

"We've got a transmission from Eden Prime, sir. You'll want to see this."

Shepard looks at the screen and watches as Alliance marines come on, clearly under attack, one of them shoves the one recording the message down, "GET DOWN!". The camera then shows what is presumably the units CO, "We are under attack! Taking heavy casualties. I repeat: heavy casualties! We can't…argh! -eed evac! They came out of nowhere. We need —" before they could finish they get shot and the camera shows the team astonished by a ship coming in to land. The transmission ends abruptly with static.

"Everything cuts out after that. No comm traffic at all. Nothing."

"Status Report."

"Seventeen minutes out Captain. No other Alliance ships in the area. There is a ship just sitting at the Relay though."

Anderson looks worriedly at Nihlus, who notices the look "A small strike force can move quickly without drawing attention. It's our best chance to secure the Beacon. You gather intel on the ship near the Relay at the same time."

"Shepard tell Alenko and Jenkins to suit up. You're going in."

####

 _ **January 28th, 2183**_

 _ **14:15, Galactic standard time, GST**_

 _ **Normandy Cargo Bay**_

"Your team's the muscle in this operation, Commander. Go in heavy and head straight for the dig site." Anderson briefed them, obviously sensing the question he answered it before Shepard could ask "Helping survivors is a secondary objective. The Beacon's your top priority."  
"Approaching drop point one." Joker told them, opening the Cargo Bay doors.

"I'll scout out ahead, feed you status reports throughout the mission, see if that ship dropped anyone off," Nihlus stepped toward the opening before just dropping out of it.

"The mission's yours now, Shepard. Good luck."

"We are approaching drop point two."  
Shepard waited until Kaidan and Jenkins had dropped before following. They were securing the area as Shepard landed.

"What are those things?" Kaidan pointed his pistol at the floating form.

"Gas bags. Don't worry - they're harmless." Jenkins quickly replied, glancing between Kaidan and Shepard, before settling on the burned corpses in front of him, "Oh god. What happened here."

"I don't know. Keep an eye out for anything unusual."

She motioned for Jenkins to take point around the corner, when multiple drones appeared and shot him, taking his shields down instantly. She took the closest one down with a couple of well placed shots from her pistol, while Kaidan used throw to disable one, and toke the shields down on another with his pistol, allowing Shepard to use overload on it.

Kaidan closed Jenkins eyes, "Ripped right through his shields. Never stood a chance."

"We'll make sure he gets a proper burial once the mission's complete. You need to stay focused."

They reached the tree line, and Shepard was just about to signal to move, when they heard gunshots, and something else.

"You know is it too much to ask for a distress call to somewhere a bit less on fire?" A woman's voice called out.

"Vala less talking more shooting. We don't seem to be causing much damage, but Teal'c does. Any ideas people?"

"I believe this is a race that has adapted to projectile based weapons, and not the Goa'uld weapons. It would be prudent to use the Zats Colonel Mitchell."

The sound of weapons fire suddenly stopped. "Do you think we should bring some of these back for Sam? They could end up being as dangerous as the Replicators."  
"The Asgard brought a 'disabled' Replicator onto one of their ships and it nearly killed them. If we do bring this to Colonel Carter, we will need to be more vigilant than they were."

Shepard chose that time to bluff them. "Drop your weapons. We have you surrounded."

"Yeah, sorry but we don't believe you. If you did have us surrounded you would have helped the robots, or helped us take them out. Come out, we won't shoot at you, so long as you don't shoot at us first.

She was about to shout back when she heard two large whoomps, "I thought you said you wouldn't shoot!"  
"Oh, that wasn't directed at you. It was for the two humanoid robots heading this way. Here as a show of good faith we're lowering our weapons. I'm Colonel Cameron Mitchell, United States Air Force. We picked up the distress message and came to investigate."

"Your not Alliance, and there hasn't been a United States Air Force for nearly one hundred years. Who are you really?"

"Ah, this could be a problem."

* * *

 **A/N: Thank you for all reading the story, and as I didn't put it in the last chapter a MASSIVE to Disco-Wing who Beta read the previous chapter. To those who left a review on the previous chapter here you go.**

 **Swiftblood: I hope this chapter answers your question.**

 **TheLordOfFics: I tried to keep them all as close to how they were shown in the shows, but I may have deviated a little.**

 **EffervescentNova: They would have connected one of the 304s Asgard cores to the Destiny, for power and the specifications for the FTL engines, and then created the engines for the other ships, and a hyperdrive for the Destiny, and used them together.**

 **Eve-a: I might not have made it very clear, Sam didn't get to see the plan before Jack rejected it for her. I also meant for Jack to mean that the mission wouldn't be going through the IOA, and they wouldn't be receiving any help from them.**


	3. Chapter 3: Accidental Conflict

Chapter 3: Accidental Conflict

 _ **Date: Unknown**_

 _ **Time: Unknown**_

 _ **Atlantis Control room**_

John picked himself up from the floor, where he had ended up after the less than graceful exit from hyperspace, and looked around at everyone looking for any major injuries "OK, I'm going to assume that something went wrong, considering we were all thrown across the room. So does anybody want to tell me how bad it all is?"

"Oh you don't say. We had to jump before all the power was available, and before we input a destination. We could be anywhere right now with no way back, and no-one to help us." Rodney started pulling himself up using the console he was using to help them escape. "Oh and did I mention that I haven't had time to look at the damage done to any of the systems, some of which may well be irreversible and that's not including any damage done to the _Hammond_ and the _Daedalus_ , we could very well have killed people if anything overloaded, all because the IOA opened fire on us. That's how bad it is, I'd say it couldn't get any worse but knowing our luck it probably will. That about cover it for you?"

Jack started going around the room helping the others back onto their feet, "We were unlikely to get any help anyway. We are now on the IOAs most wanted list. I've been in worse situations than this anyway, just give it a bit and Carter will think of something to get us out of this mess."

McKay was about to reply but Chuck beat him to it, "General I don't think that is true, I mean what's still functional is saying that we completely destroyed the wormhole drive, and damaged two of the hyperdrive arrays, we've also temporarily lost both long and short range sensors. I can't say how much power we have left."  
McKay looked over to all the screens, and consoles "Oh no. This is bad. The ZPMs are down to 24%, and still dropping. At its current rate of progression we'll lose the shield in less than 36 hours."

John looked towards Jack, "So one of us needs to land it on a habitable planet."

"That shouldn't be too hard, we just need to get the sensors back online and find something suitable." Jack shrugged.

"You don't understand, we won't be able to fix the sensors before the shield collapses." Rodney said in a panicked tone, "The only other option we have is to dial Earth, or one of our allies, and then the ships can tow Atlantis away. But the city would be nothing more than a lump of metal without anything to power it."

Jack was contemplating what should be done, "OK why don't we try Langara, pull the power and bring it there," he motioned for Chuck to get the City intercom and the comms to both ships, "Attention all personnel, this is General O'Neill, due to an unexpected problem we have not reached the Destiny, and we currently are losing power fast. We are going to attempt to dial one of our allies, could everyone please make their way to the gate for evacuation of the city."

After a short while they received a response from the _Daedalus_ , "Sir we've lost our sublight portside engine, 3 of the APBs and internal transporters, we won't be much help in a fight. Maybe the _Hammond_ fared better than we did, but we haven't been able to contact them."

Jack tensed at the mention of the damage to the ship, "No I was going to evacuate the non-essential crew before contacting them, you're still in visual range of them? Can you see any external damage or not?"

Before a response was said, Rodney's face paled, "General we have a problem. The 'Gate won't connect. I've tried Langara, Earth and the Alpha site, we can't get a lock on any of them."

"Sir, we've been unable to contact the _Hammond_ but we did receive a distress signal, Mckay I think we've found your problem. Sending it over now"  
They all turn to look at the screen and watches as several humans wearing armour come on, clearly under attack, one of them shoves the one recording the message down, "GET DOWN!". The camera then shows what is presumably the units CO, "We are under attack! Taking heavy casualties. I repeat: heavy casualties! We can't…argh! -eed evac! They came out of nowhere. We need —" before they could finish they get shot and the camera shows the team astonished by a ship coming in to land. The transmission ends abruptly with static.

They all just stood still, shocked at what they had just seen, before Jack shook it off, "Were you able to get anything else, like where it came from? I mean we're in no position to help them, but if its close then we can land and make repairs."  
"Yes Sir. It came from the second planet in this system. We can have begin towing Atlantis ther…" Colonel Caldwell was interrupted by a broken message that was being broadcast from the _Hammond_.

"Jack …an you hear me? We think we… made a bypass for the …ged sections of the comm net… on the _Hammond_. What did we miss?"

McKay answered her, "Sam how's your sublight engines? We may need you to tow us to the second planet, as we have a slight problem with power and the 'Gate."

"Our sublight engines have minor damage but should hold out, what problems are you having? I'll assume that you haven't seen what looks like a massive tuning fork, we've been unable to get much from scanning it, other than it's made from a material that isn't in the Asgard database."  
"Well we'll have to come back for more about it Sam, we're losing power fast, and we are currently at 24% and dropping, not including the 'Gate refusing to connect, probably due to a 'Gate being active on the planet the distress call came from. This shouldn't have happened! How did the IOA find us that quickly?"

"We can focus on that later Rodney. Caldwell can you to us to the second planet, the sooner we get there the better." Jack fell back into his commanding tone, "Sheppard go tell Mitchell to get your teams ready and in a Jumper, you're to make contact with both races and attempt to find a solution. You leave once we're in the atmosphere."

####

 _ **Date: Unknown**_

 _ **Time: Unknown**_

 _ **Atlantis Jumper Bay**_

As John was waiting at the Cargo Bay door for the rest of his team, and SG-1, to arrive he had time to think about something he hadn't thought about in nearly 5 years, his own future. ' _Who would take command of the city? Him or General O'Neill? Did they have anyone else who was capable of running the city? Would they be able to get their people from the_ Destiny _? Could they ever return fulfill their promise to the people of_ Pegasus _? Would they be able to return to Earth without being court-martialed? Would Torren ever be able to see the rest of his people? How long would he grow up with the influence of the Tau'ri?_ ' He pushed these thoughts to the back of his mind as Teyla and Ronon walked into the Jumper Bay.

"Rodney is almost ready. He is going to show SG-1 here." Teyla told him as she entered the Jumper, heading for her usual seat behind McKay, "They are still not used to finding their way around the city."

Ronon just gave one of his signature grunts, presumably in agreement, before sitting on his seat behind the pilot, and started to mess around with one of his knives waiting for them to take off.

After 10 minutes they heard Vala complaining, "Just how did the Ancients find their way around here, all the corridors look the same. I mean they could at least have something on the walls to look at."

"The Ancients built it and lived in it all their lives, before the plague they wouldn't have needed anything to identify where they were."

"Oh don't act as if you've never got lost here Daniel. It's nearly as bad as under that mountain, at least here there's windows to look out of. The view was nice, if a little cluttered."

Once they were all next to the Jumper John asked them, "OK, are you all ready? 'Cause the _Hammond_ should be ready to take us there about now and I want us ready to leave the moment we get close enough. I'll try to get us as close to where that distress call came from and keep an eye on what's going on there, and determine if we need to get involved, we can't be dragged into another war with a new race. Not right now."

Surprisingly it was Teal'c that spoke up, "Indeed, the Tau'ri are considerably weaker than they were before. Without the _Hammond_ and the _Daedalus_ they will be restricted in who they help, and without _Atlantis_ they will have to keep a ship in orbit to defend Earth. The odds are not favourable for us."  
"Yep, but that's what makes this fun isn't it muscles? Now don't we have some people to spy on?" Vala said, practically skipping onto the Jumper, "I wonder which Goa'uld brought them there, and how long ago they kicked them off the planet. They could have a lot of useful tech just laying around."

John just tuned them out as he took the pilot's seat and conducted his pre-flight checks, once he was happy with it he contacted the control room, "Control we're all ready on our end. Just waiting for your go ahead."

There was a short delay before Jack responded, "Understood, the _Daedalus_ is in position now. Will alert you once we're in atmo. O'Neill out." They waited for a few minutes in silence before the radio activated again, "Jumper 1 you are cleared for launch, be advised there are multiple lifesigns that are disappearing, expect any LZ to be hot. Good luck, Control out."

John activated the cloak before taking off out of the Jumper Bay. Once they were clear he activated the HUD to show where they would be heading, before he could set the course for the distress call he heard Rodney pipe up, "That shouldn't be doing that. Sheppard there is an unusual energy reading from about a kilometre north from where we're going, I think we should check it out. Who knows what it does, but we should find out."

"No Rodney we are here to watch, and if needed help the locals, **not** take all of their tech, no matter how anomalous the energy reading is."  
Mitchell decided to take that moment to put his input to the conversation, "You know we could help the locals and your team can check the energy reading if it comes down to it. All we need to do is find out who the locals are, and how we can help them." Mitchell began to smirk, "We don't need to get dragged into a war, just help where we can in this battle."

"It is not wise to give our help until we know more Colonel Mitchell. We may end up helping the Lucian Alliance, or a Goa'uld that has evaded capture from the Tok'ra." Teal'c replied stoically, "We may end up causing more harm that way."

Teyla was the one who ended the argument, "I believe this is all unnecessary. We have found what is attacking these people," Pointing to the humanoid and drone robots that were gunning people down.

"Huh, I've never seen a Goa'uld, or the Lucian Alliance use those before." Vala commented on the scene, "I don't think either of them would just gun people down like this. They aren't even using Goa'uld technology. How long …"  
"Yes that's fascinating and all but the energy signature just spiked." McKay interrupted, "Oh it's back to what it was before."  
Ronon looked up, "Was it a weapon being fired? It could be pulling the energy in and then releasing it."

"No I don't think it is, the spike was too long for a weapons discharge, unless it's something like the APBs, but the draw is too short for that." McKay said pulling out his tabet, "It could be a communications device or something to power those machines, or maybe a shield generator and the spike was something impacting it. I won't know until I get closer. Now can we go check it out?"

"Fine, I'll drop SG-1 near the distress call and we'll look at the energy source. We'll stay in radio contact, check in at least every half hour, agreed?" John asked before lowering the Jumper to a clearing that currently was clear, "We'll tell you once we get there. Stay safe."

####

 _ **Date: Unknown**_

 _ **Time: Unknown**_

 _ **Clearing, Second Planet, Unknown system**_

"OK, does anyone else have a terrible feeling that something is going to go wrong here?" When nobody else speaks up Vala continues, "OK, just me then. Well might as well get this over with. Just follow the destruction, or pick a random direction to walk?"  
"No Vala, we head to the distress call and help any survivors, then they take us to the leaders and we come up with a diplomatic solution. We'll avoid any conflict if possible, however you can return fire only if fired upon."

They started to head in the direction the distress call originated from, when they heard gunshots coming from just behind the tree lines. Mitchell motioned for them to get into cover. Mitchell and Teal'c went behind separate trees, while Vala and Daniel found a large boulder to get behind, just before two humans run into the clearing, firing blindly behind them. After a second five of the drones followed them. Mitchell signals for them to open fire on the drones, one going down with a single shot from Teal'c's staff, the other four absorbing the weapons fire from their guns. The machines, now detecting a bigger threat all began targeting the tree Teal'c was using for cover, this however gave the locals a short opening, in which they concentrated their fire on one of the drones taking it down.

Vala saw this as an opportunity to try and lighten the mood, "You know is it too much to ask for a distress call to somewhere a bit less on fire?"

"Vala less talking more shooting." Mitchell relied, opening fire with another whole magazine into the drones, "We don't seem to be causing much damage, but Teal'c does. Any ideas people?"

"I believe this is a race that has adapted to projectile based weapons, and not the Goa'uld weapons. It would be prudent to use the Zats Colonel Mitchell."

They, one by one, swapped using their guns for the Zats and shot the remaining drones.

Daniel walked over to one of the zated machines, and pushed it around with his foot, "Do you think we should bring some of these back for Sam? They could end up being as dangerous as the Replicators."  
"The Asgard brought a 'disabled' Replicator onto one of their ships and it nearly killed them. If we do bring this to Colonel Carter, we will need to be more vigilant than they were."

They heard a female voice shout from the opposite end of the tree line in which the two other locals came from, "Drop your weapons. We have you surrounded."

Mitchell looked at the rest of his team, who were just gently shaking their heads, before he raised his own voice, "Yeah, sorry but we don't believe you. If you did have us surrounded you would have helped the robots, or helped us take them out. Come out, we won't shoot at you, so long as you don't shoot at us first.

Before they heard a reply there was two of the humanoid machines that had attempted to ambush the team, Teal'c noticed this and fired two rapid shots from his staff at them. They heard a slightly disbelieving tone in the response, "I thought you said you wouldn't shoot!"  
"Oh, that wasn't directed at you. It was for the two humanoid robots heading this way. Here as a show of good faith we're lowering our weapons. I'm Colonel Cameron Mitchell, United States Air Force. We picked up the distress message and came to investigate." They noticed that once this was said the two locals raised their weapons, and pointed them at the team.

There was a brief pause before the voice replied with a slightly angry edge to it, "Your not Alliance, there hasn't been a United States Air Force for nearly one hundred years. Who are you really?"

Daniel was the one that understood what was said a second before the others, "Ah, this could be a problem."

####

 _ **Date: Unknown**_

 _ **Time: Unknown**_

 _ **Anomalous Energy Location, Second Planet, Unknown system**_

"OK Sheppard, this is the place. The anomalous energy should ... be ... just in front of us."  
Ronon grunts, "That thing is the reason we left a fight. It looks like a piece of rock."

John just slightly turns his head towards him, "I wouldn't worry too much about not having fighting those machines big guy, I can see a few of them that you can destroy near the thing for Rodney."

If anyone was going to reply it was cut off by the radio activating, and Mitchell's voice coming through,"Sheppard our weapons have no effect on these things, they seem to have some kind of shielding against projectiles, energy weapons do have an effect on them though, so focus fire using any stunners you have."

"Understood. We've just arrived, I'll alert _Atlantis_." John said, landing the Jumper as close as he could, " _Atlantis_ this is Sheppard, the locals are under attack by machines shielded against projectile weapons, SG-1 has engaged, AR-1 is currently going to examine an anomalous energy signature coming from what is presumed to be a rock. Will respond when we have more information. Sheppard out."

As they were about to leave the Jumper O'Neill's voice came from the Jumpers radio "... Understood Sheppard. See if the locals will allow us to remain here to conduct repairs. Control Out."

They slowly exited the Jumper, and upon seeing the machines, entered cover once they were all in position Teyla and Rodney opened fire on the two closest, while John got the one on the platform above thm and Ronon took out the one furthest away. That allowed them to advance to the unknown rock. Teyla remained with Rodney while Ronon and John went and secured the entrance, and found several more of the machines, they quickly took them all out and found a device that was emitting a series of beeps, "SG-1 this is Sheppard we have encountered an unknown piece of technology that I believe is a bomb, do you have any local that could guide us in disarming it?"

"Sheppard this is Commander Estelle Shepard, could you describe what the bomb looks like, it will help in determining what you need to do."  
" Um it's roughly cylindrical, with the middle containing the bulk with a blinking blue light, the two end bits have exposed wiring and that's it."

"That's not enough information I'll need …" She was interrupted by Ronon firing his gun at the bomb, leaving a large hole on the middle, "What was that?"  
"There," Ronon said walking away to continue examining the area, "now it's not a problem. It's damaged and it can't go off."

"That would be the bomb being destroyed. SG-1 what is your position? We could come back and help if you need…" Ronon shot another bomb.

"We're currently on a tram headed towards a port. The Commander is apparently here to pick up a beacon." Mitchell quickly responded. "Oh and we found something that should make for an interesting debrief."

Ronon's gun went off again, "Hey I think I can see them Sheppard. You don't think there here for the thing McKay wanted?"

"It's possible I don …" He was interrupted by an explosion coming from where Teyla and Rodney were.

* * *

 **A/N: This is the longest chapter I have written so far. I've just finished College now, and I'm not starting Uni until September, so I should be able to update quicker, and with potentially longer chapters, until then.**

To those of you who thought the previous chapter could have been handled better, there was no changes to the timeline until near the end, so I thought it best to keep it as close to the original as possible. That will be the only carbon copy chapter, the rest will deviate, to varying degrees, from its source material.


	4. Chapter 4: Unwanted Company

Chapter 4: Unwanted Company

 **January 28th, 2183**

 **14:45, Galactic Standard Time, GST**

 **Eden Prime, Forest Clearing**

Commander Shepard slowly rounded the edge of the tree she was using for cover, with her weapon raised, and was surprised to see six people, only four had their weapons on the ground, while the other two, who were in standard alliance armour, had their weapons trained on the others, "Identify yourselves."

The one furthest away from her spoke up, "Colonel Cameron Mitchell, United States Air Force, identification Code 9 2 Whiskey 1, Sierra Golf Charlie Sierra Golf 1. I'm in charge of SG-1, and you are?"

She didn't answer straight away, wondering if any of the others would identify themselves, when they didn't, "Commander Estelle Shepard, Alliance Navy, N7." in order to keep the authority in the conversation she asked again, "The rest of your team who are they?"

The one with ancient looking glasses on his face spoke up, "Hi, I'm Doctor Daniel Jackson, historian and archaeologist.

The tall one, with a strange metal pole just tilted his head and said, "Teal'c."

The woman, who was looking board at the interaction, begrudgingly gave them her name, "Vala Mal Doran."

Daniel piped up again, "We picked up your distress call and came to help out. You said that the United States Air Force hasn't been around for about 100 years, what year is it now?"

She glanced at Kaiden, who was looking at them a like they had been living under a rock for all of their life, but she decided to humour them, "It's 2183. How could you not know that?"

Daniel and Cameron looked uncomfortable while Teal'c was impossible to read. Vala however got interested in that, "So you're saying that we've travelled 174 years in the future, well that's new, for most of us anyway." Shepard noticed the look she gave Daniel, when he was about to interrupt.

Daniel was about to say something but Shepard stopped him, directing her focus to the two marines, "What's going on here soldiers? Are you alright?"

They both nodded, and the shorter one of the two spoke, "Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, and Serviceman Nirali Bhatia of the 212 ma'am. You in charge here?"

Shepard knew she wasn't going to get much from them until they knew about the mission, "Yes, we were on our way to pick up the beacon when we got your message. What can you tell me about these things?"

"We were patrolling the area just before the attack." Nirali began, "Then they just arrived, started attacking before we knew what was going on, we barely had the time to get off the message before they killed half the squad. We lost contact with the 232, they were at the dig site with the scientists. We thought if we fell back we would be able to help defend them, but we got ambushed in the forest. When we got here we noticed them waiting with weapons drawn, but didn't fire until the Geth came through."

Kaiden looked between the group in front of him, Shepard and the synthetic bodies lying on the ground when a loud bang went off in the distance, "The Geth haven't been seen outside of the veil in nearly 300 years, do you think they're here for the beacon?"

"Colonel Mitchell, do you think that is the thing Colonel Sheppards team went to investigate?" That brought the attention of all the alliance personnel.

"There's another team here! How many of you are there? Never mind. Chief, Serviceman can you take us the dig site, you four come with us. I don't trust you to not betray us so I'd rather have you where I can see you instead of taking down civilians."

Ashley and Nirali reluctantly lowered their guns. Shepard decided to contact Nihlus, and tell him what they found out, but didn't get a response.

####

 **January 28th, 2183**

 **15:20, Galactic Standard Time, GST**

 **Eden Prime, Space Port 1**

Shepard was surprised it took this long for the first injury to occur to the unknown team, she had to admit that whoever they were; they were good at what they did. It wasn't Daniel, as she had expected, but was instead Vala. She had taken several shots from a Geth rifle in her arm before she fell back into cover. With none of the team wearing armour it had passed straight through the other side, Kaiser saw this and immediately created a barrier around himself as he went to administer some medi-gel. They were able to take care of the rest of the Geth rather quickly, despite being two team members short.

As they approached where the beacon should be Shepard noticed Cameron activate his radio, "Sheppard our weapons have no effect on these things, they seem to have some kind of shielding against projectiles, energy weapons do have an effect on them though, so focus fire using any stunners you have."

After a short pause she heard the reply, "Understood. We've just arrived, I'll alert Atlantis."

She carried on walking just behind the rest of the squad she had acquired.

"I believe I have found the victim of the gunshot we heard." Teal'c lowered himself to inspect the body, "Single shot to the back of his head. He remained still before it happened. They had lowered their guard. This was not an honourable fight." He turned Nihlus over and closed his eyes, "Come. What we are searching for has been moved."

Nirali and Kaiden didn't move, "How do you know that? The only way you could know is if you had a hand in his death."

Teal'c stopped almost as if he heard something that he shouldn't, while Daniel just smiled, "He is an excellent tracker. He knows what he's talking about."

Teal'c turned around and pushed past them, back towards the crates, and began pushing them out of the way, until he found a person hiding behind them, he grabbed him and pulled him in front of the group, "What happened here?"

The colonist was in shock at being found, "I, I, I. Th.. The other Turian shot him. He seemed to know him. He… I think, yes, he called him Saren. They knew each other and, and, and Saren just shot him in his back. I, He went to the other, the other dock. It was, The beacon was moved to the other dock this morning."

Shepard knew they wouldn't get anymore information from him, "It's all right now. We're here to help the colony, can you get to somewhere safe until this is all over?" The colonist just nodded and ran away, towards a shed that was currently unlocked.

The trip to the trams were uneventful until Cameron got a panicked call on his radio, "SG-1 this is Sheppard we have encountered an unknown piece of technology that I believe is a bomb, do you have any local that could guide us in disarming it?"

He looked between all of them before passing his radio to her. After a quick demonstration on how to work it she replied, "Sheppard this is Commander Estelle Shepard, could you describe what the bomb looks like, it will help in determining what you need to do."  
She only got a quick response, " Um it's roughly cylindrical, with the middle containing the bulk with a blinking blue light, the two end bits have exposed wiring and that's it."  
"That's not enough information I'll need …" She was interrupted by a loud bang, "What was that?"  
"There," she heard a low gruff voice say, getting quieter, "now it's not a problem. It's damaged and it can't go off."  
"That would be the bomb being destroyed. SG-1 what is your position?" She handed the radio back over, "We could come back and help if you need…" another bang.  
"We're currently on a tram headed towards a port. The Commander is apparently here to pick up a beacon." Cameron quickly responded. "Oh and we found something that should make for an interesting debrief."

A short pause before his response, "It's possible I don …", he was interrupted by an explosion.

"Sheppard come in. Mckay respond." Cameron tried to contact him again, the rest of his team showing varying degrees of worry.

Once the tram stopped Shepard noticed one of the bombs that had tried to be described to her still active, it was about 2 minutes away from exploding, she knew that she would never be able to deactivate it in time, "I found another bomb. There's not enough time to stop it from blowing. Can you destroy it like your friend done with the other one?"

Teal'c just tilted his head slightly, lowered the pole and fired at the bomb, leaving a hole to the electronics, and fired again, completely obliterating them. Just at the same time as Camerons radio went off, "SG-1, McKay and Teyla were caught in an explosion, they're alright as far as we can tell. We're not going to move them to the Jumper until you get here to help. I'll contact Atlantis on the way there and tell them the situation."

When they reached the other team, and the beacon, Shepard noticed that it had been destroyed, but a device was connected to the side of it. She didn't have time to react before Kaiden, Ashley and Nirali all raised their weapons at both teams.

Ashley had anger burning in her eyes, and voice, "You destroyed it! Do the deaths of those on the planet not mean a thing to you? Without the information on that the lives lost would have been for nothing!"  
"All of you stand down." They didn't move, instead the team they travelled with and the two that weren't unconscious raised their weapons, "Now! The rest of you will come with us to report what has happened here to my superior officer. We can take your shuttle to the ship." She activated her comm and contacted the Normandy, "Joker tell Captain Anderson we've run into a problem."  
She heard him acknowledge her, before putting the Captain on, "Shepard what's happened?"  
"We're bringing back a few guests sir; two Alliance and eight unknown. We have a few wounded that the Doc should look at. Sir Jenkins and Nihlus were KIA, and the beacon was destroyed. We'll be coming in a shuttle so you should clear the C/E deck."  
"... Understood Commander. We'll debrief once you get back."

She turned and saw Daniel and Vala lifting the unconscious man, while the two she didn't know lifted the unconscious woman and started taking them towards the right side of the port, before they disappeared right in front of her, after a moment a ship appeared where they once were. Teal'c went back to the beacon and got the device while Cameron directed them onto the shuttle.

####

 **January 28th, 2183**

 **16:30, Galactic Standard Time, GST**

 **Normandy Communication Room**

 **In Orbit around Eden Prime**

"So your saying that you did not see what they did to the beacon for it to explode? Nothing at all?" Captain Anderson was starting to get mad, after going at this for half an hour they were still not any closer to discovering what had happened to the beacon or who these people really were, "OK, you pick up an 'unusual energy signature' with your shuttle"  
"Jumper!" Cameron and John practically shouted

"With your 'Jumper'," Anderson continued, "Decided to drop of one team while you went to investigate. This team meets with the team to collect the beacon while you go to the beacon ahead of them. You then arrived at the spaceport take out the Geth around the beacon, and you leave them behind while you two," indicating to John and Ronon, "go and secure the area, find three bombs and proceed to destroy them, while leaving one bomb where my team would find it, because your team had blown up the beacon. That is quite possibly the"  
"Uh Captain." Joker interrupted Anderson, "We have an unknown ship on intercept trajectory. It's like it can see through the stealth systems… … … … … …. Sir we're receiving a message, its an old style visual, patching it through to you."

He put the video link on the screen in front of them, "Unknown vessel this is the USAF Daedalus. Explain why you have taken eight members of our crew. You have five minutes to reply before we will board your ship and take them back." The feed cut off immediately.

"Can you send a reply on the same frequency?" Shepard directed Joker, "We can get one of them to call of their ship."

"Aye, aye ma'am." Jokers response was heard clearly over the deathly silent room, "It might take awhile to configure the comm system to send out that signal, probably longer than the time frame they gave us."

Shepard didn't want to find out how they would board the ship if they could see through the stealth systems, but unless they contacted the ship that's what would happen.

"You are aware that the Jumper has a radio link to the Daedalus. We can just use that to tell them we're OK." John told them, as if that should have been the most obvious thing in the world.

The Captain thought for a few seconds, "Alright, but you go with a member of my crew, and the rest of you stay here." He motioned to Shepard, "Go with him, make sure he doesn't do anything else."

She gestured in front of her to get him to move, the walk to the elevator was silent. Once they were in however she decided to break the silence, "So…" she thought about how best to ask, and decided to just come straight out with it, "How does your ship go invisible, or fly? I didn't see any control interface that you used on the way up here."

He gave her a sideways glance, "It uses a mental component, I think something while at the seat and if it can do it it will. The cloak activates in the same way, it just renders it invisible to the eye and to most sensors," his eyes got a faraway dark look in them as he said that, "You know, I would have thought that you would already know this, has the IOA not gone public with the Stargate yet?"

"There was never anything called a Stargate, at least not to my knowledge." she was going to ask about that, but the elevator had reached the C/E deck, and they stepped out towards the 'Jumper'. She noticed a few of the crew disperse from around it when they noticed her arrival. She waited for the ramp to finish lowering before stopping him, "You do know that the council will want answers, the Geth show up to Eden Prime just before you and Saren, and the beacon gets destroyed by one of your people. It won't look good on humanity. So if you can't tell us what happened we'll have to hope those two wake up before we get to the Citadel."

Once they were inside she noticed something she hadn't seen on the way back to the ship, "Is that the M1911A1?" She went to pick it up, before stopping herself, "They were decommissioned 100 years ago, where did you get it?"

John smiled at her enthusiasm but didn't answer either of the questions, instead activating the Jumpers HUD and communication device, "Colonel Caldwell, this is Colonel Sheppard, you don't need to board the ship, we came here voluntarily as the energy we detected was a beacon the locals discovered, Rodney and Teyla were caught in the blast. SG-1 and myself are currently being questioned for our intentions, we have not begun diplomatic relations yet. We will continue and check in once it is complete. Is there anything else that we should know?"

"Understood Colonel. Why are you being questioned? And why were your teammates not brought back to Atlantis for medical attention?"

Shepard answered the questions before John could speak, "They are being questioned as we believe that they had something to do with the beacons explosion, and the injured were brought aboard due to our knowledge of Prothean technology, along with the fact we will question them once they are awake."

Colonel Caldwell just looked at her, like he just noticed she was there, "OK. We'll send a Doctor over to assess, and report on their condition. You should be aware we have landed two ships on the surface of the planet for repairs, once they've been completed we'll be on our way."

"That won't be possible Colonel," John interrupted, "SG-1 have found some information that will change our plans. They'll tell it once we get back to Atlantis for a debrief. We have discovered however that most of our weapons are useless here, and we are severely outclassed, they have defenses that render all but our energy weapons obsolete, with weapons that can cause high damage rates, that don't run out of ammunition."  
"We'll relay this information back to Atlantis. We will expect check in every 2 hours minimum. Doctor Beckett will be beamed aboard the Jumper in 5 minutes. Take him to McKay and Teyla." The link was cut before she could object.

John powered down the Jumper again. He seemed to be contemplating something, Shepard got prepared to attack. Once had decided on a course of action he abruptly stood up and walked over to where the weapons were held and picked up the weapon and handed it to her, "Here, you can see if it can be used against those things, I don't think it'll be much use though, not if SG-1s P90s didn't get through."  
She took it and examined it thoroughly, before holding it up and looking down the sights, "If I can convert it to use mass effect fields it should be able to help me out in a pinch." She went to put it on the magnetic holster, but John handed her the leather one that he took it out of, "Thanks. What did he mean by two ships helping with the repairs?"

"No they aren't helping with the repairs, they're busy making repairs to themselves. They were damaged in our arrival here." He began, but was stopped by a blinding flash of light, and a man appearing with several unknown devices, along with a medical bag.

"Right, what's Rodney done now?" he started to head out of the Jumper only to stop at the door, "Where will I find the patients Miss …"

"Erm. That's Commander Shepard. Not related." John said rolling his eyes at the look he was giving them both, "Commander, Doctor Beckett. Doctor, Commander. McKay and Teyla are in the ships med-bay."

"Aye. Then can you take me there I need to see the damage done, and see what we can do for him."

She looked between the two of them, "The Captain will want to see you before you're allowed anywhere near them."

She lead them back to the elevator, to take them to the briefing room, and explain how she was now returning with an additional person.

* * *

 **A/N: I decided to write, and release this at the same time as the previous chapter as they are both mainly happening at the same time.**


	5. Chapter 5: First Contact

Chapter 5: First Contact

 ** _Date: Unknown_**

 ** _Time: Unknown_**

 ** _Atlantis Control room_**

Jack felt the city being lowered into the planet's atmosphere, "Is Doctor Beckett in the chair yet?" He knew that it was unnecessary, but Sam and Zelenka had told him it would be safer if there was someone in the chair, should something go wrong.

"Aye General, I'm here. I'm still not sure why you can't do this, I mean I understand why Sheppard can't." Carson rambled.

"I need to remain in the control room and monitor our progress and the two teams down there. Now calm down, it's not like it's your first time in landing the city, just the first it's not getting shot at while you do it." Jack pointed out, jokingly.

Carson sighed and shut off the radio. The city began shaking as they began their final stage of descent. The shaking stopped just as abruptly as it began.

"Jack we'll begin repairs to the Hammond, but we should keep the Daedalus in orbit just to be safe. We can rotate them until they are fully repaired, but if we focus on Atlantis then we can do the others on the move if necessary." Sam's voice came through, "It's up to you, but we don't know how long we will be able to stay here."

Jack thought for awhile, before deciding, "Concentrate on the major damage to Atlantis, stop the power drain, then fix the major damage to the Hammond, and Daedalus, and any minor damage to all three can be done at the same time." Jack started to head for a transporter to meet Sam and the repair crew before radioing the chair room, "Beckett you can go back to the infirmary now. Good job."

He arrived just after the crew left the ship and walked into Sam giving them their orders, "Focus on getting the power grid fully operational, anything else is secondary."

The crews headed off to the various areas of the damaged conduits, "Will they finish the repairs before we have to leave? Zelenka was not happy when he saw level of damage we caused. Well I think he wasn't happy, he went off in Czech for several minutes."

Sam looked worried, "I'm not sure. Some of them may need replacing, and to do that we'll need to use the core to make new one's, but it will take a lot of energy to make it, unless we find a deposit of neutronium in the system, but even then it'll still take a lot of energy to make, we just can't afford to do that right now. We'll have to keep Atlantis on the planet until we have the energy available, we just won't be able to have any major system active, so no shield, cloak or stardrive." She started heading to the transporter to take them back to the control room, "We'll be fine as long as the city isn't attacked. If we can get a power source for one of the ships then this will be fixed, but until then…" She trailed off leaving the consequences unsaid.

They went over to Zelenka, "How long will it take for us to get a power source for the cores?" Jack asked.

"It's impossible to know. It could be a few days, or we could be here for a few years. We pulled the ZPMs the moment we landed, the city is now running on our generators, they should power most systems until the city has the major conduits repaired." Zelenka relied, brining the tablet he was working on over for them to look at, "Unless we use a ZPM we won't be able to repair them any time soon, but we should only use that as a last resort."

Sam looked at the tablet and shook her head, "The city has more damage than we thought, it'll take at least six months to fix the damage to the most important systems, then another four to fix all the damage to the minor systems, and that's just to get them in a workable state, it'll take nearly double that to get them anywhere near their optimal, and then we have the time for the cosmetic alterations, it could take over two years to get Atlantis back to what it was before."

"Maybe we could just get them in work…" Jack was cut off by the radio going off.

"Atlantis this is Sheppard, the locals are under attack by machines shielded against projectile weapons, SG-1 has engaged, AR-1 is currently going to examine an anomalous energy signature coming from what is presumed to be a rock. Will respond when we have more information. Sheppard out."

Jack looked at the confused faces of both scientists in front of him before replying, "... Understood Sheppard. See if the locals will allow us to remain here to conduct repairs. Control Out." He picked up from where he was, "We could just get them in a workable state and take the city to a planet with the materials we need, that would reduce the need for the ships to waste energy travelling with back and forth."

"That still leaves us with the conduits, and how to fix them." Sam told him, "We could use the Hammond's power to make the main one and leave the ship docked until we can replace the power on it. It'll be easier to find more Naquadah than Neutronium."

"Sir, the Deadalus is transmitting a message." Chuck alerted them, drawing them out of their contemplation, "It seems to be important."

"Put it through Chuck, you'll have to finish this later."

Colonel Caldwell's face appeared on the screen in front of them, "Sir we've just detected the Jumper leaving the planet and heading towards another ship in orbit. Permission to contact the ship."

Jack responded nearly immediately, "Denied Colonel. They may not know about our presence here, we need to keep it that way for as long as possible as Atlantis has no shield. Wait until they have been on the ship for over half an hour, then contact the teams directly."

Colonel Caldwell nodded, before disconnecting.

Jack monitored the three ships in orbit through the sensors, and saw them become two. "Sam, Zelenka can you get any information about the ship they went to, and if we need to can we get our people off?"

They went to the sensors and started going through all the data they were receiving, after several minutes Sam asked for the data the Hammond had picked up from the device they arrived near. "General, the ship is emitting a similar energy as the device, I think it's how they travel. If I'm reading this right then they can use real space FTL. I think the energy provides a localised rip in space and allows something to pass through, it's sort of like the Destiny FTL engines, but less advanced."

Jack just glanced between them, "So you're saying that these people don't use hyperdrives, but travel using less advanced versions of it. How is that possible, I thought that all planets with humans would either travel using the stargate or some version of hyperspace."

"Yes sir, but this might have been an experiment left behind by a Goa'uld, how can they travel faster than light if they run out of Naquadah, or just wanted a way to beat their enemies. I don't know unless we find something on the planet that tells us we won't know why it was created, but sir that's not the point, we could still reach Destiny." Sam told him excitedly, "If we can get that installed on one of our ships we could use it to reach them, think about it they're still in regular space so all we need to do is use that and then activate the hyperdrive, we could get there in a matter of months instead of years, all we need to is get the tech from them and we can use it to…"

Colonel Caldwell came on the screen again, interrupting her, "We may have a problem sir. They are being questioned, and McKay and Teyla were injured in some explosion, however the ship don't appear to be hostile, I told them that Dr. Beckett would be transporting onboard to assess them. Permission to beam him directly onto the ship with them."

Jack radioed the infirmary, "Beckett get your things, your going to check on McKay and Teyla. They were injured in an explosion, get anything you need and prepare for beam out."

After an acknowledgement they just waited, after a minute Beckett activated the radio again, "OK I'm all ready to go, I've got some Ancient devices coming with me. You can beam me aboard now."

Jack nodded, and Caldwell gave the order to his crew, after about ten seconds had passed he told them that Beckett had made it with everything.

 ** _Date: Unknown_**

 ** _Time: Unknown_**

 ** _Jumper, Unknown Ship_**

Beckett took in his surroundings once the beams light had disappeared, and saw John with an unknown woman. He picked up his medical bag, "Right, what's Rodney done now?" he started to head out of the Jumper stopping at the door, realising he had no idea where these people had put his patients, "Where will I find the patients Miss …"

"Erm. That's Commander Shepard. Not related." John said rolling his eyes at the look he must have been giving them, "Commander, Doctor Beckett. Doctor, Commander. McKay and Teyla are in the ships med-bay."

"Aye. Then can you take me there I need to see the damage done, and see what we can do for them."

The Commander looked between the two of them, "The Captain will want to see you before you're allowed anywhere near them."

She lead them back to an elevator, with a furious glint in her eyes, and a thoughtful look. Once they were all in the elevator she rounded on them both, "Just how did you manage to get aboard the ship? For that matter how did your ship see through the stealth systems of the Normandy?"

Beckett responded quickly, attempting to prevent a diplomatic incident, "Well I don't understand the science behind it but I was able to be transported aboard your vessel by our point-to-point transporters," he thought it best to avoid saying where they got it from, as most of the Galaxy were unaware of the Asgards demise, "It allows for us to move anything from one location to another, as long as the destination is within range of the ship"

John continued, "Our ship was able to see through the stealth systems of your ship as we have strong sensors that only the strongest cloaks can prevent. The cloak you developed must be nowhere near as effective as that of say the Jumper." Before he could continue the doors opened and the Commander just marched out, Beckett waited until John had left before he followed them into the room where SG-1, Ronon, three people in similar armour to the Commander and someone who he thought was her commanding officer, he went straight to him, "Dr. Carson Beckett. I'm here to assess the condition of the two…" he paused, noticing the stare he was getting, before continuing, "The two crew members that were affected by the explosion on the planet, along with any other injuries the teams got while they were down there."

He noticed Vala reach for her left arm before saying, "I don't think that'll be necessary doc, whatever they used on me down there has completely healed the arm. It's something that you could use if they'll…"

"Enough. Doctor how did you get aboard, and what are the things you have with you?" the commanding officer interrupted.

"Captain they said that he used transporters that let him get aboard, but it only works if its in range of the ship, I recommend we head to the Citadel, the Ambassador, and Council will want to know why were unable to complete our mission, and it will prevent anymore unexpected 'guests'." The commander quickly told him before Beckett could open his mouth.

"OK, I agree." He looked up at the ceiling, "Joker plot a course to the Citadel, I want us out of range of that ship now."

"Understood Captain. Calculating route, current ETA just over 16 hours. Preparing drive core for in system jump. Arrival time to the Relay, 17 minutes. We are away sir."

"Oi, You can't just take us away from our ships without our consent, they will come looking of us!" Vala shouted, standing and tried to get to the Captain, but a blue glow came around her, and the male in the armour, who had his hand held out.

"Stand down Lieutenant, release her." The Captain told him, "Yes we can take you with us, you were the ones who willing came into our custody, and as for your ships, let them come after us, they won't be able to dock once we tell the Council what happened here." he turned his attention back to Beckett, "So. What. Do. You. Have. In. The. Bag?"

Beckett opened the bag and took out the scanner, "This is the only thing that you probably won't recognise, it's a portable medical scanner, it'll give me an accurate reading of everything going on with the person I scan with it, the other things, that aren't in the bag give the reading in a way for me to read."

As he was telling the Captain this he slowly put his hand up to his eyes, and brought his fingers together, until he was pinching the bridge of his nose. He sighed and shook his head, while lowering himself into one of the empty seats, "Since it's obvious you all aren't going to give us a proper answer, and I can't put you all in the brig, I'll have to have someone escorting you around the ship. Commander can you bring Chiefs Bakari and Felawa, and tell Chief Grenado and Lieutenant Lowe that they're on escort duty if our guests in the infirmary wake. Can you take the Doctor to the med-bay and appraise Chakwas of the situation, and tell her don't hesitate to act if she notices anything suspicious."

Beckett put the scanner back, and picked up the two tablets that went with them, and followed the Commander out and to the med-bay, where an older English woman greeted them, "Ah Commander, and I don't think we've been introduced," She put down the tablet she was working on and walked over to them, and held out a hand for him, which he graciously took, "Doctor Karin Chakwas."

"Doctor Carson Beckett, my people just brought me aboard to monitor their situation. What's your prognosis?" He motioned to Mckay and Teyla before getting the scanner back out again, wondering if it was even worth putting away to begin with.

The Commander started to talk before the doctor could reply, "Captain Anderson wanted you to know that you have permission to use whatever force you deem necessary if you notice anything suspicious, and don't let him out of your sight." She turned and barged out of the med-bay.

Chakwas raised an eyebrow as the door closed behind her, "That was unexpected." she motioned for him to follow her. "Now I'm unfamiliar with their baseline, as we don't have any files on them, but I've detected some abnormal beta waves, but from the explosion itself there's no damage, so they're very lucky."

He picked up the scanner and the tablet and ran it over McKay first, then Teyla, before looking at the results, "I've got the beta waves as well, but I've detected an increase in their Rapid Eye Movement, it's almost as if they're in a deep sleep. If I knew what caused this I could see what else we can do to, I don't want to give them a treatment if the thing that caused this is still manipulating them."

Chakwas held her hand out for the tablet, "I agree, but were you not on the planet when the beacon exploded," when she saw him shake his head, she gave a confused look before continuing, "Well we believe that they were caught in the explosion of a Prothean beacon, the team we had there to retrieve it, along with the Captain, believe that they deliberately caused the explosion."

"But not you." he said as she handed the tablet back.

"No, why would they deliberately cause the explosion and then get themselves caught in the blast. That is the worst possible plan I've ever heard. No, the most likely option is they were investigating the beacon, and the Geth done something to the beacon to cause the explosion."

 ** _Date: Unknown_**

 ** _Time: Unknown_**

 ** _Normandy Med-bay, In transit to the Citadel_**

"Doctors they're waking up."

The first thing Rodney noticed when he woke was the massive throbbing headache he had. It took him about a minute before he tried to open his eyes, and attempted to sit up, once he did he noticed he was in an infirmary, that wasn't anywhere he recognised. He noticed that both himself, and Teyla were in a similar position, while Doctor Beckett, John and two women were also in the room with them, "Ow, my head. What happened?"

The woman that was wearing an unusual uniform, "That's what we're hoping you could tell us. You were at the centre of an explosion of one of the oldest relics, I think you owe us an explanation before we reach the Citadel in… How long Joker?"

"About twenty minutes Commander, oh and the Captain is on his way over."

Rodney turned just in time to see the door close behind a man who he assumed to be the Captain, due to the way he carried himself. "As the Commander has probably already told you I would like an explanation as to what happened on the planet, and it had better be good or I can have you all thrown into an asylum for what I have already been told, Time-travel, alternate universes, flying cities," He shook his head, "I want the truth on what went on down there."

"Well, we picked up your distress call and brought our damaged ships to the planet, they'll still be there conducting repairs, and we were sent to make contact with you, and help if necessary, when we picked up an energy signature that we were unfamiliar with, so I asked to investigate." Rodney shifted so he was sitting with his back resting against the wall, "When we got there I got to work and connected my tablet to the device to try and get some reading on it to find out what it was, the readings were incredible, a device that was capable of interfacing with the mind of its user, and transmit thoughts to others like it."

Teyla spoke, preventing him from continuing his explanation of the device, "Once Rodney had started to copy the data on the device, it lifted him up; I attempted to pull him away from the device, but I was unsuccessful, the device lifted myself as well. It must have given us some of the information stored within before it exploded."

The two doctors looked at each other, "Well that would account for the increased REM, and the beta waves were the same as when they were awake, so it does make sense." The woman directed her attention to the two of them, "Just what did you see?"

"I do not know, it was very unclear, I think it was one species killing another but that was all I was able to make out. Sorry."Teyla turned her head to Rodney, "Did you get anything else?"

"No just lots of killing, and not like the Wraith or Goa'uld. They were in some kind of war I think; maybe"

"We are on approach to the Citadel now. We should be docking in about ten minutes."

"Commander tell the rest of our guests to get to the airlock, I'll have Chief Grenado and Lieutenant Lowe bring these two when the doctor gives them the all clear. The Ambassador wants to talk to us when we dock. I'll see you all in his office." With that he turned and walked back out the room.

Doctor Beckett began scanning both of them, "I can't see anything unusual. You'll be alright, just try to stay away from anymore unusual energy." he put the scanner down on the table in the corner of the room, "You can give them a second opinion if you want. Rodney will just complain that I've overlooked something otherwise."

The other doctor activated something on her arm, and ran it over their bodies, "I'm not getting any unusual beta waves, I'd say that you've made a recovery. You're free to go talk to the ambassador." an unfamiliar rumble passed through the room.

"What was that?" Rodney pushed himself to the edge of the bed, "Sheppard what's going on? Where are we?"

"In order; I don't know, we are under arrest for the destruction of an ancient relic, and we are on one of their ships. We've all been paired up with a member of their crew, so we don't get in anymore trouble." Sheppard responded helping them out of their beds, "I hope SG-1 has a plan for getting us out of this mess, because I can't think of one. Doctor are you coming with, or staying here?"

"I think I'll stay here, some of this technology is amazing, if we could get an understanding of it, it could be used on our ships, or on the ground."

Sheppard took them out of the 'med-bay' and they were greeted by two people in similar armour to the person tailing Sheppard, "Commander, the Captain told us to bring those two to the airlock, and follow you to the embassies."

 ** _Date: Unknown_**

 ** _Time: Unknown_**

 ** _Citadel, C-Sec Academy_**

Daniel was glad that he spent his time reading the 'Codex' on the way here, but he was just as shocked as everyone else, "This is incredible, all these different people and cultures working together. I wonder how long it took for them to integrate together."

"The people who built this could definitely have the Ancients beat in scale. How did they manage to get this working?" He barely heard Vala as they passed a Turian and Asari, both in the same blue armour that everyone around them was wearing.

He did notice the looks they were getting as they walked through through, it was either due to what they were wearing or the fact that they were the largest group in the area and most of they were carrying some type of weapon. The ship's crew were very insistent that they would only be allowed to bring one of each of their weapons, for study, and they were in no position to deny them. Once they were in the lift he opened the Codex on the Data-pad that Private Bhatia had given him, he began reading about the Citadel Council, "Why is it that only three races are allowed on this Council? I read that some of the races have been here nearly as long but don't have a seat yet."

The rest of the people didn't answer, instead they waited for the elevator to take them to their destination. When they reached the door the Commander walked in first, and faltered for a second before continuing on further into the room, when he entered the room himself he saw the Captain with another Human, several Turians, Asari and Salarians.

"Ah Commander so nice of you to join us, I assume that these are the ones mentioned in the report." the other human said with disdain, "Why did they destroy the beacon, or work with the Geth?

"Hi, I'm Doctor Daniel Jackson, I think this is all just a misunderstanding, we didn't work with the Geth, the beacon did explode when we attempted to get an understanding of it, and the technology that makes it up." He thought back to what he read about the different species in the room, "If you have someone mind meld with one of us you can see we mean no harm, and we didn't deliberately cause the explosion, that isn't how we work."

One member of each species looked at each other, and the Turian shook their head, while the Salarian and Asari nodded. The Asari then turned towards a purple Asari in dark blue armour, "Spectre T'Nero would you meld with Doctor Jackson, determine if they truly are at fault."

T'Nero took a step towards him, "Doctor Jackson try to relax, take slow deep breaths. Let go of your physical form, let your mind grasp the threads that connect us all together. Open yourself to the universe. Embrace Eternity."

The moment that she finished speaking he found himself in the 'Gate room at the SGC.

"Incredible, I've never met a human who has had their memories this organised before Doctor, as much as I would like to continue admiring this you should let me complete my mission. Can you show me the memories leading up to the destruction of the beacon."

Daniel thought back to just before Atlantis was fired upon, and the Gate activated, "I think that this should give you some background into how we got to the planet." They stepped through the Gate and were brought to the mess hall in Atlantis, where they saw the two ships drop out of hyperspace, and fire at the city. They saw the quick hyperspace jump the city went through, before being transferred to the jumper on the way to the planet's surface, and the subsequent fighting that happened. When they reached the memory of the arrival to the beacon she brought them out of the memories, and to back to the room.

T'Nero moved back towards the three who gave her the mission, and melded with them each in turn, showing them what he had shown her. They then nodded to each other.

"We have been shown no evidence that they were involved with the Geth in anyway, however we are yet to determine if the beacons explosion was caused by you. We will require one of those who were affected by the beacon to also be melded with." The Asari looked between the members AR1 and stopped on Teyla, "T'Nero would you meld with her, find what happened to the beacon and if they were responsible."

The Spectre repeated the same process with Teyla, taking longer than what it did with him. After nearly 10 minutes they seperated and she again went to the three in charge, and melded with them.

"It is the decision of this council that the destruction of the beacon was of no fault of these people. We can now move onto the second motion of the meeting, Commander your mission report stated that Nihlus was killed, and you said that it was unlikely that the Geth killed him, why did you come to this conclusion?"

The Commander took a step forward, "Nihlus only had a single shot to his head, that left a sniper rifle, or a pistol, and for a sniper to be powerful enough to get through the shield it would not leave the head intact, that means that it was a pistol in close enough range that the shield wouldn't be able to stop it. Nihlus was a good Spectre, therefore no Geth would have been able to get close enough to do that, so someone else had to get close enough for him to lower his guard."

Teal'c spoke up, shocking many of those in the room, "The person from the dock mentioned someone called Saren, I suggest that they were responsible."

The turian let out a slight growl, "Saren is a Spectre who is currently on assignment on the other side of the Galaxy he couldn't be responsible, besides the testimony of one traumatised dock worker is hardly compelling evidence, I am still not convinced that you weren't responsible for the attack yourselves. This has just proven that humanity is not yet ready to join the Spectres. If there is nothing else to add the meeting should be adjourned."

With that the majority of the people in the room left, leaving just the SG teams, their escorts, the Captain and the other Human.

"It was a mistake bringing that many people here Anderson." The other Human said pacing the floor, "The beacon destroyed and Nihlus dead. That mission was supposed to improve our standing in the Galaxy, instead you have set back decades of work, we will be lucky to get another chance to get someone in the Spectres within the century. It will be a miracle if they even listen to us anymore. We should have you all arrested for the remainder of your natural lifetime, however in order to do that we will need to release some sensitive information to the Alliance public, information that we can not afford to release at the moment. Now get out before I decide to change my mind, I need to speak to Anderson alone."


	6. Chapter 6: Assistance From The Dark

Chapter 6:Assistance from the Dark

 _ **January 29th, 2183**_

 _ **12:14, Galactic Standard Time, GST**_

 _ **Presidium Embassies, Outside Human Embassy**_

Sheppard didn't like it. Even after the sixteen hours she spent babysitting a member of the team she brought with them, she didn't trust them anymore than a Krogran would trust a Turian. She couldn't tell what it was, but it seemed that they knew more than they let on. They were able to convince the Council they weren't responsible, but she still wouldn't let them out of her sight. She was pulled out of her thoughts by a message on her omni-tool, "We know what you need. Meet Bala Von at the Bank. -SB" it also contained directions to get there from the embassy, she noticed that Kaidan, Ashley and Nirali all got a message at the same time.

"What do you think Commander, should we go there? It could be a way for them to get back to their people." Kaidan voiced his concerns eyeing the others with suspicion.

"I don't know Kaidan. Whoever sent it must have some pull to send that to us at the same time the meeting with the Council ends. Anyone with that kind of pull could know something. It depends on what the Captain wants us to do." Captain Anderson left Udina's office shortly after she finished speaking.

Once the door was shut behind him he began, "The Ambassador wants C-Sec to conduct an investigation into what happened on Eden Prime, but the Council won't allow it to go ahead without any evidence that proves the Geth weren't operating independently. They want us to remain on the Citadel until further notice," He glanced towards their guests with anger, "The Alliance doesn't like it, but they can't do anything about it without losing further credibility. You need to hope that there is something on the planet that proves your suspicion."

"Captain, We all received a message telling us to meet with Bala Von at the bank. Is there anything you can tell us about him?" Sheppard asked, showing him her omni-tool.

"Barla Von?" He opened his Omni-tool, "I thought the name sounded familiar. Alliance Intel suspects that he works for the Shadow Broker, and judging from the message you received that's correct. Commander, a word of advice if you decide to go: be careful of what you say or do. The Shadow Broker is rumored to be the best information broker in the galaxy, he always has an angle on things, he won't be helping from kindness, he will want something in return."

She looked at the members of the Alliance, and who they were escorting, before deciding on whether to go. After a very awkward few minutes she heard Daniel ask to go see the agent of the shadow broker. She did want either Daniel or Teyla, but with the potential knowledge that the latter now held about the protheans it would put her in danger. She let them all go explore, except John, Daniel and Nirali, telling the others that she would message them once the meeting was over. As they left she securely connected her omni-tool to Anderson's so he could listen in on the meeting.

It took them a few minutes to get across the presidium lake and arrive in front of a building nearly identical to the embassy. Sheppard walked in and went to the Asari receptionist, "Hello. We're here to see Bala Von."

Without looking up they dryly responded with something she must repeat quite often, "I'm sorry but I don't think you have an appointment. Mr Von is very busy at the moment waiting for an important client. He has in fact just cleared his schedule to meet them, I can make an appointment for next Monday afternoon for you."

Daniel came in nearly immediately after they finished speaking, "I think that Barla Von cleared his schedule to meet us, a .. mutual acquaintance sent us. Someone with the initials S.B. can we see him, it is very important."

The Asari dropped the datapad she was working on at the mention of S.B. and they visibly paled, "Oh, I am so sorry I didn't realise it was you Commander. Please follow me" They stood up and rushed to the front doors and locked them before taking them down a corridor to the manager's office, where they were met by a volus. Sheppard could feel herself start to get worried.

"Ah Earth-Clan, welcome. I am Barla Von," she could feel his eyes going across the group she had with her, "I was expecting you to bring just the alliance members of your crew, nevertheless I can work with this. We have two bits of information that you may find interesting; the first my, ahem, employer has gracefully allowed me to pass on free of charge, the second will cost you. The first bit: the SPECTRE Saren has recently betrayed the Shadow Broker and has taken one of our agents with him, we are currently dealing with him but we will leave some information pertaining to Saren for C-Sec to find."

Once there was a few seconds of silence she spoke, "So how does this help us, and how much for the second piece of information?"

Barla just slightly lent back in his chair, "It helps you as it prevents further attacks to your colonies and you get to discredit a SPECTRE, is that not enough? Don't worry about the cost of the other information, its cost isn't in credits; no for this information it would bankrupt the entire alliance. This information can be traded only for information of equal cost, and that is where your companions come in." He turned his head to be facing John and Daniel directly, "Now you, and your teams, are a complete mystery to us, which itself is impossible so I will trade the information for the low, low price of explaining who you are, and giving us some of your weapons that can go through our shields."

Daniel shot forward, "I'm sorry but we aren't able to hand over our weapons, it'll affect the balance of power, and we won't be responsible for that, and we won't tell someone all our information if it can be bought for a simple trade. Maybe we can give you something else?"

"I suppose the cloaking technology from your ship would suffice."

John was the one to reply this time, "First off we can't give that to you for the same reasons as our weapons, and second even if we were going to give you anything then we could damage our ship, and that could cause it to not function. We could give you some subspace communication devices."

Barla tilted his head as if he was contemplating something, or listening to someone, "Give us the some of these communication devices, sensors and propulsion and you have a deal."

John and Daniel went off to the side together and had a conversation before they came back, "We'll give you the schematics for the communication and sublight engines, but we don't know if all the materials can be found here, and we'll need to contact McKay to get them here."

Barla gave a small chuckle, "I don't think that will be a problem for us. Just get us the schematics and the information is yours."

While they were finishing negotiating Sheppard called Operations Chief Grenado to tell her to take McKay back to the Normandy and get the information from their ship. It took nearly half an hour Grendo to reach the bank with McKay, and a single datapad.

Barla had a quick look at it, presumably to make sure that they were fulfilling their end of the deal, but how he would be able to tell she didn't know. "The agent's name is Fist, he operates from a club called 'Chora's Den' we sent a mercenary called Wrex to take care of him, and before he defected he let the Broker know that a Quarian had evidence against Saren. If you hurry you might be able to get to Fist before we do, and get the information from him. Now if you don't mind I have to send this to the Broker so he can decode it, and do whatever he wants with it."

####

 _ **January 29th, 2183**_

 _ **13:22, Galactic Standard Time, GST**_

 _ **Bachjret Ward, Outside Chora's Den**_

Sheppard looked over her makeshift squad for the last time before entering the bar, they had no spare armour on the Normandy for McKay, John or Daniel, and even if they did it would take far too long to get them in, and familiar with the suits. To keep them protected they had the spare shield generators, and the three had agreed to exchange their own weapons for one of the alliance issue weapons, Sheppard and Nirali both gave up their assault rifles, while Grenado had swapped out her pistol for McKay to use. They all looked out of place, but she hoped that they would be able to handle whatever Fist threw at them, and this Wrex if he turned out to be hostile. As she was about to open the door she heard a Krogans roar, and several shotgun blasts, she quickly motioned for Niralli to open the door, while herself, John and Grenado got in position by the door, with McKay and Daniel bringing up the rear. Once the door opened the first thing she noticed was the small army that were targeting a single Krogan, on the opposite side of the room, who was slowly taking them all out. She decided to target a single biotic near the centre of the confrontation, whilst motioning for the others to get into cover, before she opened fire, and the shot hit its target, quickly incapacitating her. The moment that the biotic went down there was panic throughout their ranks, which both the Krogan and Shepard's team took advantage of, taking out 6, three with the unusual weapons, two with a single carnage blast and a final one from combined fire from their swapped weapons. With the numerical advantage being reduced by the second, and general fear setting in, Fists workers began falling back to a more defensible place in the bar, which allowed for Shepard to advance to the Krogans position.

"Humans, I have no quarrel with you. I only wish to kill Fist, and get my payment. What is your stake in all this?"

She waited until there was a break in the gun fire before responding, "We need some information that Fist has, it's meant to prove Sarens involvement in the Eden Prime attack. Could you hold off from killing him until we get that information Wrex?"

She only got a grunt in response as he fired his shotgun into a piece of furniture, revealing a Human and a Turian, which they quickly took down.

After a few minutes they had either killed, or incapacitated all of Fist's workers, and entered his office, where they found him with a pistol and a confident grin, that quickly disappeared when he saw the size of the group. He dropped the gun in shock, "Don't kill me. I'll give you everything I have, just please let me go."

Shepard motioned for the others to leave the room, "The Quarian with the evidence against Saren. Where are they? If I was you I'd think carefully before giving me an answer as the Krogan was sent to kill you."

She saw him glace at the Krogan, and pale as he leveled the gun at him, "An alleyway nearby. I set the meeting in an alley just a way from here. The meeting is meant to be going on now, if you hurry you might just make it."

"Go on. Get out of here. The Shadow Broker will be after you." Shepard left the room with Fist rushing past her, but was shot in the back by Wrex, "What was that? I let him go."

"I done what I was paid to do. I don't leave jobs unfinished."

She stormed out of the room and towards the alley where the meeting was taking place. Once they arrived she got her team to surround one end, while the other team surrounded the other end. She activated one of their radios, then shut it off, giving the signal to advance. They cut off both exits and brought attention to themselves from the two Salarians, who opened fire at them, giving the Quarian time to throw an overload at the Turian, while they made short work of them.

"I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my team. We're looking for information that proves Saren is working with the Geth. You should come with us, you're not safe here, we'll take you to the Ambassador."

"John, you are needed on the ship. Some of the local security force is attempting to arrest us, and take the Jumper. Myself and Ronon are currently stunning them, but they will make it past us soon." John and McKay grabbed their weapons, swapping the pistol and rifle, and rushing towards an aircar. Shepard quickly had Niralli and Grendo to follow. Leaving just herself, Daniel and the Quarian to head back the Embassy.

####

 _ **January 29th, 2183**_

 _ **14:47, Galactic Standard Time, GST**_

 _ **Presidium Embassies, Outside Human Embassy**_

Shepard walked towards the Embassy in front of Daniel and Tali, who had been in deep conversation about the culture of the Quarians for the entirety of the of the trip. When she reached the door she was greeted by half a dozen C-Sec officers, most of whom looked like they had seen better days, Udina, Captain Anderson, Admiral Hackett, and all of SG1.

"Ah Commander. Thank you for bringing the last of your guests to us, we can call off the manhunt we were prepping for." A Turian with white facial markings and a suit, instead of the blue uniform of the others, said walking towards Daniel. "Now we can arrest the terrorists responsible for the attack on a Citadel race colony."

"Actually we have evidence that proves Saren was the one responsible for the attack on Eden Prime." Shepard stepped to the side, allowing Tali to step forward and play the recording, "Eden Prime was a major victory. The beacon has brought us one step closer to finding the Conduit.

And one step closer to the return of the reapers." once the recording had finished Tali turned off her omni-tool and began wringing her hands together.

"The recording from a single Quarian," Shepard noticed the venom in the Turian's voice, "is not suitable evidence, besides how do we know that it isn't a fake."

Tali looked up and quietly, but angrily, told them how she obtained the recording from a Geth on an uncharted world, and removed it's memory core, and how she lucky she got as much as she did due to the memory wipe all Geth do before shutting down. She gave C-Sec the recording, and one of the officers confirmed it was genuine.

The Turian ordered the other officers to leave, and all but the one who checked the recording left. "It seems that you are clear for now. I'll be watching you all though. Vakarian stay with them." swiftly leaving the embassy.

Udina was the first to break the silence, "Commander we could have scraped back some of humanities reputation, instead now you may have made the situation worse, just what were you thinking?" his rant was interrupted by his terminal notifying him of a message. Once he read it he seemed to calm down, "Well Commander, still may be able to salvage the situation. The Council has arranged a meeting in their chambers for us tomorrow morning. They have asked for you and the Quarian specifically, both myself and Captain Anderson also be in attendance, they are also allowing you a single guest each, now I don't intend to dictate to you, but I would advise against bringing any of these … people with you. Now please leave, I have to find a way to get this to work in our favour."

"Actually Ambassador, I would like to use your office in order to listen to what they have to say, and see if they can give us any information about themselves." Hackett said walking towards a table on the other side of the room. He waited until she, SG1 and Anderson were all seated, "So we have two options, either you work for an agency that has managed to remove all traces of you from all databases in the galaxy, or what you said on the Normandy is true. Now neither of these are very believable, but it's the only ones we're able to come up with at the moment, so I want to hear what you have to say, along with the recommendations of the Captain and the Commander, before the Alliance decides what to do with you."

They began explaining what they were doing on Eden Prime, but Shepard only started paying full attention when they told them how they arrived at the planet.

"We were on our way towards the Destiny, a starship that some of our people are stranded on, but because we didn't exactly have permission to complete the mission, the IOA sent two ships, the Sun Tzu and the Odyssey, after us. We were still completing the adjustments to the ships we took when they found us. They wanted us to surrender the ships, and when we didn't they immediately opened fire. The only way we had to escape was using the drive we were adjusting. Something went wrong with it though as we dropped out just after we we went in, and it drained most of the power. We picked up the distress call from the second planet, your Eden Prime, and that's when we landed on the planet, and met your team." Shepard had a hard time keeping up with them as a different member of SG1 picked up the explanation the moment the last one stopped for a breath.

"Well Captain, Commander. You both have the most time with these people, what are your recommendations? Anything you say will be off the record." Hackett didn't show any emotion to say how much of the story, if any, he believed.

"Personally, as much as I don't want to, I think their story has merit." Anderson spoke directly to Hackett, ignoring everyone else, "If they worked for some agency to get information from the Alliance, they wouldn't go for something as outlandish as that, either that or they've all had the same hallucination. But I will defer judgement to the Commander, as she has spent the most time around them."

Shepard froze for a second, realising that she would be the one to make the final decision regarding, not only the four in the room with her, but the three ships back on Eden Prime. "Sirs, I believe that we should work with them, that way if their story has merit the Alliance can benefit. I've already seen some of their technology, it completely ignores our shields, and they were able to see through the Normandy's stealth systems, like they weren't even there. If it turns out the were lying though we have them close enough so we can make them disappear." Once she had said her piece she noticed that Daniel and Mitchell visibly relaxed, and Hackett allowed a look of shock to pass over his face for a moment before nodding and picking up a datapad.

"OK I'll forward the recommendation to Alliance HQ. I can't guarantee that they'll accept it, but I'll see what I can do. In the meantime you should find somewhere to rest up, and find the other team before either C-sec or the Alliance arrest them." He stood up and went to leave, "Oh and Commander, I know the mission wasn't a success on its original parameters, but well done and good luck."

####

 _ **January 29th, 2183**_

 _ **18:50, Galactic Standard Time, GST**_

 _ **Shepard's Apartment, Zakera Ward**_

"OK you can all stay here for tonight, it'll be a little cramped but everyone should fit." Shepard unlocked the door with a wave of her arm, to reveal the small three bedroom apartment. "You might have to double up in the beds, and I'll see what I can do about getting some extra covers for you. Make yourselves at home." She moved into her bedroom, and tried to find some blankets or duvets for her guests to use. Luckily she had enough for the seven of those who were with her, thankfully the C-Sec detective agreed to take the rest with him, along with Tali.

She came back with the covers and threw them at John, Rodney, Romania and Teyla. "You can have he bedrooms on the left when you come in. Alenko, Grenado and Lowe one of you can bunk with me, and the others will have to sleep on the couch. All of you should get some sleep, I'd like us to leave at around 5 tomorrow morning; that'll give us enough time to get the rest of the teams, and get to the meeting on time." She turned and started heading towards her own room, followed by Lowe, hoping she would get to sleep without worrying about the rest of her team.


End file.
